Recently I unplugged my removable hard drive from my home computer to bring it to work. When I came back I noticed the shortcuts’ icons that where pointing to my drive were no longer showing. If for any reason your Windows icons start to show the default icon, even after you restored the missing files, then you need to rebuild your icon cache.
The problem
Icons show a default Windows icon when the original icon file goes missing. They do not reappear once even once restored.
The Solution
Clearing the Icon cache. Windows store icon files in a file called IconCache.db which is to speed up the drawing of icons. If for any reason it goes corrupt or you want to rebuild it. You need to delete it and restart explorer.
Batch Script To Clear The Icon Cache In Windows 7
@echo off del /F %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db Taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F explorer.exe
Hope this helps if you’re having the same problem.
EXCELLENT !!!! Thanks.